FLAMES ━━ 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐛𝐲

𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣.

𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣 | 𝘈 𝘛𝘈𝘓𝘌 𝘖𝘍 𝘗𝘙𝘖𝘎𝘙𝘌𝘚𝘚 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘈𝘕𝘎𝘌𝘙

｡･:*:･ﾟ✧ ｡･:*:･ﾟ

SHE HADN'T BEEN HOME for a minute, and Tommy had already left her in the dust.

Tommy had returned her embrace but in a flash he untangled himself from her and returned to business, leaving her (and his family) dumbfounded. He had cleared his throat and walked to the safe, Polly hot on his tail, and Esme had come to hold Annabel's hand as John and Arthur led her out of the shop, cracking jokes, trying to lighten the ambience. It hadn't succeeded, and Annabel was holding back a tear at his sudden coldness that had iced her veins after their embrace.

Annabel excused herself gently and walked up the stairs only to open the door to Tommy's bedroom and realized nothing in the space had changed since her departure. She ran her fingers through the surfaces and finally sat on the bed she and her beloved had shared. Images of naked nights, giggling and rolling on the bed, savouring the other, home in each other's arms, flashed through her mind and tears came to her eyes, despite her trying to be tough. She didn't know if her Tommy was still hers, what he had become, and if he still loved her. His attitude reminded her of the first times she had interacted with him, his ice cold heart dominating their every interaction. They had seemingly come back to square one, and Annabel didn't know why she had expected anything else. Time and distance had formed a seemingly insurmountable bridge between the lovers and she felt foolish for pretending that they could rekindle their love as if nothing that happened.

Annabel sat there for hours, waiting for Tommy to come up and tell her they were over, but he never came. Indeed, the patriarch of the Shelby family knew his beloved was waiting for him in his room, and he couldn't bare to think of the realities of differences and falling out of love he would uncover if they were face to face in a room alone. He had been lucky to make her fall in love with him once, but as Tommy Shelby knew so well, luck doesn't often help, or save, a man twice.

As Annabel sat on his bed, Tommy almost considered going to Lizzie Stark as he had gone in Annabel's absence. Yet, the thought was gone as soon as it came. There was nothing and no one better than Annabel Lee, and there would be no woman, he learned and knew, that could fill her place nor take away his thoughts of her. No matter how hard he tried to forget, he was bewitched, body and soul, and regretting doing and being with anyone that wasn't Annabel in an attempt to forget. She was the only one, the one, and she would always be.

So he finished his cigarette, took his courage in two hands, and made his way to his room. He didn't want to melt, and he knew that the second he saw her that is what her fire would do.

He climbed up the stairs silently, almost like a ghost, and stood in front of his bedroom door a long time before his hand finally turned the door knob. Inside, the found a sight that did him in.

Annabel Lee was laying on his bed, sleeping. Her eyes twitched and he remembered the many times they had done so before: she was dreaming. Strands of red hair were wildly scrambled on his pillow and on her face, her beautiful face, reminding him of the wilderness of the woman herself. She looked so peaceful, so angelic. He realized as he gazed at her sleep on his bedroom doorstep that she was the same woman that he had known, surely different in many ways, but the same. She was still Annabel, his Annabel, and he knew this because as she slept, his soul recognized hers, despite all his efforts to distance himself.

He stepped inside the room and sat at the end of the bed, near her feet, making Annabel shift. Her eyes softly fluttered open, and half asleep, Tommy heard her mutter.